Easter Fool's Day
by I. B. Joyful
Summary: April Fool's Day isn't for everyone. When Draco is dragged along to an Easter/Birthday party, he is correct in being wary. Will Draco get pranked or will he be the pranker?


iubA/N: I do not own the Harry Potter Universe or the Buffy Universe. If I did, things would be different!/b/u/i

Draco stood nervously in front of the door, willing himself to knock. He could do this. He had faced worse things before. He had battled against the Dark Lord Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts, and fought the monstrous werewolf Greyback and survived. He could handle this. He took a deep breath (in, out) and knocked. He had barely made contact with the door when it was yanked open. A tall brunette girl grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the apartment.

"There you are, Drake! I've been waiting forever! I'm almost ready." Silently, Draco wondered how she could have been waiting so long if she wasn't ready yet, but he wisely kept these thoughts to himself. His girlfriend released his arm and pranced down the hall to the bathroom. She was probably applying more makeup.

Draco glanced warily around the apartment, searching for anything that might possibly be a prank. Everything iappeared/i to be normal, but that didn't mean anything. Dawn was a very clever girl and April Fool's Day seemed like the sort of holiday she would enjoy immensely.

He shrugged, "Sorry. I was held up at Blaise's place."

This was technically true. His best friend had taken one look at his apprehensive face and asked if he wanted an excuse to be delayed for a couple of hours. (Actually, Blaise had suggested Draco hide at his house instead of showing up at all, but Draco knew better than to provoke the hostess. She had killed his aunt, after all!) Draco had gratefully agreed, but he could only delay the inevitable for so long. It wasn't that he was trying to get out of seeing his girlfriend. Not at all! He loved Dawn and (usually) enjoyed being with her. No, it was the party they were going to that he wished to avoid.

"Alright, I'm ready." She walked back up to him. She looked stunning, of course. She always did.

Dawn peered into his face and suddenly smirked. (Hmm, her smirk looked an awful lot like his. He must be a bad influence on her.)

"Are you… scared?" she challenged.

"What?! No!" He denied it fervently, but she had hit the mark pretty dead on.

"Right…" She let her voice trail off in an infuriating maner. "We should get going."

"Sure," he said grumpily. "We wouldn't want to be late." Ah, sarcasm. How he loved it so!

As he closed the door behind him, he felt a faint twinge of worry. Dawn hadn't tried to prank him at all, which was unlike her. That had to mean she was planning something bigger...

hr/  
Draco found himself glaring at the door to the Burrow, home to the Weasley clan. He shouldn't even have to be here. He had never gotten along with any of the Weasleys and had even been bitter rivals with the two youngest ones, Ronald and Ginerva for years. (He always called them by their full names to annoy them.) Unfortunately, Dawn was friends with them, so he was being forced to come along.

Dawn had actually met and become friends with Ron and Ginny before she even met Draco. Rupert Giles had been the mentor and Watcher to Dawn's older sister Buffy. He was now the Head Watcher of the International Council of Watchers and Slayers, ICoWS for short. (I-cows? Really? That was the best they could come up with?) Headmaster Dumbledore of the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been good friends with the British librarian, so, when the old man died (no matter what you heard, Draco had not killed him!) Giles had naturally attended his funeral. When Giles heard that Voldemort had returned, the Watcher quickly gathered his army of Slayers (all 814 of them), Watchers, and mystical help and rallied in defense of the downtrodden Order of the Phoenix. Dawn had been one of the aforementioned Watchers (in training) and had met the Weasleys in that capacity.

They had taken Malfoy Manor, which Voldemort had taken over as his base, and had captured Draco and his family in the process. Narcissa and Draco had immediately offered their assistance to the side of light (Lucius had taken some convincing, but he came around). Dawn was assigned as Draco's "buddy" (she was supposed to watch him to make sure he wasn't doing anything "evil") and they became fast friends. With the council's help the war was soon over with no loss of life on the side of the light. (Maiming and serious injury, yes. Death, no)

That had been about a year ago. Now Draco was being dragged along to a Easter/Birthday Party. (Apparently the twins, Fred and George, had been born on April First. No surprise there).

Dawn knocked briskly at the door, which it was immediately opened by Mrs. Weasley.

"Dawn, welcome! We are so glad you could make it!" she bubbled happily as she hugged Draco's girlfriend.

"Draco." She nodded in acknowledgement of his presence. Relationships between the two families were no longer outright hostile, but they were still quite frigid.

Dawn and Draco joined the party, and Dawn immediately skipped over to where Ginerva and Hermione were chatting by the refreshments. Draco sort of hovered by the wall, trying not to be noticed. As it was April Fool's Day, there was a very good chance one of the partygoers would decide to have a little revenge for his school day bullying and prank Draco, and there would be nothing Draco could do to stop it.

"Attention everyone!" Mr. Weasley loudly announced. "We are now having an Easter Egg hunt in the yard!"

A slight frown crossed Draco's face. An Easter Egg Hunt? They were all adults, such things were for small children only.

A hand grabbed Draco's arm, and he jumped slightly. Dawn grinned at his nerves.

"Come on! I bet I can gather more eggs than you do!" she dared him with a cocky smirk. He still didn't really want to participate, but he knew Dawn wouldn't stop hounding him until he gave in. He might as well show her he was better at this than she was. (Yeah, right.)

They walked out. Mrs. Weasley was holding an empty basket and Mr. Weasley was standing next to a pile of identical ones.

"First off," the matron began. "No magic! Everyone, please bring your wands and put them in this basket." She indicated the wicker basket she was holding. "You may collect them at the end of the game." There were a few disappointed groans (mostly from Ronald), but Draco was secretly glad. He didn't want to get "accidentally" hexed. "Second of all," she continued. "All of the eggs are outside and none of them require destroying anything to get at them," she fixed them all with a piercing glare, "so don't go tearing up my garden. Got it? The last thing is, no-one is allowed to open any eggs until the end. Now that that is out of the way, everyone grab a basket and begin!"

At this there was a surge of people rushing forward to get a head start on everyone. Draco grabbed a basket and quickly began to search. Everything was going well, when there was a blood-curdling scream from across the lawn. Draco's hand grabbed for his (absent) wand as his head snapped in the crier's direction. It was Ronald. He was staring in horror and quickly stumbling away from something on the ground. Loud laughter sounded from behind the blond boy and he looked to find the twins wearing identical expressions of mirth.

"Do you think Ickle Ronikans learned his lesson, dear brother?" one of them (George?) queried the other with a grin.

"I do believe he did," the other (Fred?) answered with a matching smile.

Draco glanced curiously back at Ron and saw that he was getting angry. His hands were balled into fists and his face had turned a deep shade of red (not unlike his hair). He was breathing heavily and his face was screwed up in a glare. He looked irately back down at something in the grass and quickly looked away again, a hint of nausea on his ugly (in Draco's opinion) features. Draco craned his neck curiously, trying to see what had so upset the redheaded boy. He took a couple steps closer and suddenly understood. An Easter Egg lay open in the grass. From within it, all sorts of disgusting creatures squirmed and writhed, gruesome black spiders, beautiful (to Draco) red snakes, beetles and bugs of all colors and sizes. At first glance, they appeared real enough, but upon closer inspection, they were revealed to be mere candy mimicks, not unlike chocolate frogs.

"I didn't open it intentionally," Ron protested gruffly. "It was an accident."

Accident or not, the incident did not halt the game permanently, though everyone was much more careful with their eggs after that. Finally, all the eggs had been gathered. (Dawn gathered the most of everyone at the party.) Draco was almost afraid to open his, but when he did he discovered ordinary candy. Still, he was a bit apprehensive about eating any. The twins' candy that they sold in their joke shop look normal too, but when you ate it all manner of strange things would happen to you! Draco decided not to risk eating any until he was in the safe solidarity of his home.

Next everyone sat down to a huge feast prepared by Mrs. Weasley (Draco cautiously and unobtrusively inspected his chair before sitting and discovered a large whoopie cushion. Poor Neville Longbottom was not so attentive and was quite embarrassed.) Draco did not eat any of the dishes until he had seen at least one person eating from them, but it seemed none of them had been altered. After the meal, they all gathered to give the twins' their presents. (Draco gave them monogrammed handkerchiefs that honked like a goose whenever you blew your nose. Fred and George were delighted, and the pleased look Dawn gave him made him feel warm and fuzzy inside).

When the party was over, Draco and Dawn headed back to Dawn's apartment. As they walked through the door, Draco felt strangely not-bad. Apart from some slight coolness, no one had treated him like, well, like he had treated them. During the war, necessity had insured everyone get along, but there was nothing keeping them from retaliating for his past self now. Yet, they hadn't. Somehow that made him feel sort of… happy.

Dawn shot him a mischievous smile.

"Well, nobody cursed you. I think that makes today a qualitative success."

Draco rolled his eyes, but she had a point. She meandered over to the counter and started to put away some dishes.

"Can you grab my jacket off the couch?"

She gestured vaguely at her living room. He spotted her favorite cashmere sweater (it had been a present from him) on the arm of her chair and headed over and picked it up. BANG! A cloud of noxious red gas surrounded his head. In a moment, it dissipated. Draco did a quick check of his limbs but nothing seemed to be wrong. It was possible of course that the cloud and explosion were the entirety of the prank, but knowing Dawn he doubted it.

"What did you do?" he asked suspiciously.

She giggled. "Go look in a mirror."

Oh, no. He walked briskly over to the bathroom. He glanced in the mirror. Oh. He gazed at his reflection contemplatively for several seconds before strolling back into the kitchen and leaning against the wall. She continued doing dishes and pretended she hadn't noticed him come in.

"I suppose you think you're clever," he drawled. She turned to face him, eyes sparkling with mirth.

"I do, actually."

He walked forward and put his hands on her hips. Leaning close until his lips almost brushed hers, he murmured.

"Hair dye? Really?"

She burst into a fresh round of giggles.

"Hermione helped me. The color was my idea, but she was the one who suggested I wait until after the party so that you would let your guard down somewhat," she gasped between giggles.

He waited patiently until her laughter had subsided somewhat.

"You know red isn't only the color of the Gryffindor house. It is also the color of love, tomatoes, blood, and fire just off the top of my head. What makes you think I dislike the color?" he said calmly.

She arched an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"How long does it last?" he asked, ignoring her question.

"A week," She grinned.

"I guess we're even then," he whispered softly, leaning forward slightly and brushing his lips against hers. POOF! Dawn gaped in horror as she stared down at her body, which was now covered in neon blue feathers. "Mine lasts a week, too."

As Draco sauntered out of the apartment (followed by the outraged cries of his girlfriend), he allowed a smug smile to grace his face. Maybe April Fool's Day wasn't so bad after all.

ibuA/N: Yeah! My first one shot!

This story was inspired by my little sister who suggested we fill our Easter Eggs with bugs and snakes in honor of April Fool's Day. After much careful deliberation, we decided against the idea./u/b/i


End file.
